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For the first time in nearly two centuries, giant tortoises are once again roaming Floreana Island in the Galápagos, a conservation milestone more than a decade in the making.
Early settlers on Floreana Island altered the landscape and hunted the Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger) into extinction about 180 years ago. But while working on Wolf Volcano, roughly 180 kilometers (112 miles) away on Isabela Island, researchers with the Galápagos Conservancy noticed something unexpected.
“The tortoises seemed different,” Penny Becker, CEO of Island Conservation told Mongabay in a video call. “They looked different and they were behaving differently.”
So, the researchers took DNA samples from those tortoises and compared them with DNA from tortoise bones found in caves on Floreana. “Indeed, there were some pretty strong genetics left in the Wolf [Volcano] population from tortoises that were here on Floreana,” Becker said.
